Click to play videoNew Delhi: While Gorakhpur is torn apart by communal violence, the Centre is commemorating a hundred years of Satyagraha with a big conference at the Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi.
To reignite its nationalist agenda, the Grand old Party lined up an enviable list of luminaries. Among those present were the Congress chief, the cotorie of ministers, reluctant allies, international delegates and Nobel laureates.
The mother and son duo of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi could be seen pacing from one floor to another.
For the Congress, the Satyagraha conference was a special event that had a definite goal to achieve. "We are trying to connect the present generation to history, that part of history which is relevant for the country in particular and the world at large, " says Congress leader Devendra Dwivedi.
The political audience on the other hand concealed its discomfort with academic sobriety. "It is a good thing that there is a debate," says Union Railway Minister and RJD leader Lalu Prasad.
Not everyone was present on the occasion and attendance was strictly by invitation. Among those not invited was the Opposition.
"It is Congress which celebrated dandi march and it is the Congress which has inspired to celebrate 150 years of the 1857 revolution. Therefore, it is exclusively a Congress initiative to refurbish our ideological position today," says Dwivedi.
Congress has been going through a phase of ideological vacuum for long and now, the party is back to experimenting with Gandhi, perhaps to energise its youth base.
"We as Congress members are really encouraging the people of this country to reflect what he had said and what he had taught," son of the late Rajesh Pilot and MP, Sachin Pilot.
Speaking from this stage, Sonia called for the formation of what she called the "coalition of conscience", based on Gandhian idea of Satyagraha. But given the state of affairs of contemporary Indian politics, it's better if Gandhian ideals become the conscience of the coalition.
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